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Women in Lesotho are finding abortion pills and their providers on Facebook. Abortion, a matter of common law rather than statutory law in Lesotho, is illegal in all cases except those that threaten the life of the mother according to the UN country report.

In addition to legal obstacles, women in Lesotho face threats of social isolation, similar to women in the United States, where abortion can also be a taboo topic. These societal implications coupled with the legal restrictions of the nation drive women to seek out an alternative path.

Maseru, Lesotho — Mpho opened a new chat on WhatsApp, entered an unfamiliar number, and typed a question she never thought she would have to ask.

Mpho: When can I get the pills?
I'm 7 weeks pregnant.
Doctor: Tomorrow
1000LSL including womb cleaning.
Okay.
Does it hurt?
No. 9am tomorrow, come by then.

Mpho, who asked that CNN not use her real name, didn't know who she was talking to. She found the phone number on a Facebook post while searching for "abortion pills, Lesotho" online. The person reading her messages claimed to be a doctor.
In Lesotho, a remote country home to just 2.2 million people and surrounded by South Africa, abortion is strictly illegal, apart from in life-threatening cases.

A 15-year-old girl attending Bochaletsane High School in Mants’onyane village in Lesotho’s Thaba Tseka district was reported by police Tuesday to have died due to termination of pregnancy.Lesotho is among the 14 African countries, including Angola, Central African Republic, Congo (Brazzaville), DRC, Egypt, Gabon, Guinea Bissau, Madagascar, Mauritius, Mauritania, Sao Tomê and Principe, Senegal and Somalia where abortion is prohibited.

Police senior superintendent Litsietsi Selimo told APA that the deceased was in past weeks confronted by her guardians about her condition, but resisted and said she would rather die than disclose the person who impregnated her.

DAKAR, Senegal — The clinic, tucked discreetly inside the student health center on the University of Dakar campus, prescribes birth control pills, hands out condoms and answers questions about sex that young women are nervous about asking in this conservative Muslim country.

The clinic performs no abortions, nor does it discuss the procedure or give advice on where to get one. Senegal, by and large, outlaws abortion. But for other health services like getting contraceptives, said Anne Lancelot, the Sahel director at the organization that runs the clinic, “there is a very high demand.”

Now, under a Reagan-era policy revived by President Trump, the clinic may no longer be able to count on aid money from the United States Agency for International Development, part of a ban on providing abortion counseling overseas that could curtail a broad range of health services, including those that go well beyond abortion.

In one of his first acts as president, Donald Trump introduced a ban on funding for any international organization that, anywhere in its health care programs, provides or even discusses abortions with patients, other than in cases of rape, incest or life endangerment.

Known as the global gag rule because it prevents talking with women about the procedure, this ban has been enforced and revoked by different administrations since it was first imposed in 1984. It has been illegal to fund abortions as a method of family planning with U.S. money since 1973, but the gag rule pulls other family planning funding — for H.I.V. prevention or contraception, for example — if an organization even advises a patient on where to get an abortion. President Trump’s rule goes even further, and pulls all global health assistance, including for programs that address infectious diseases like malaria, Zika and Ebola.